Privacy is a Biological Imperative?

sevej writes "As a lead-in to an article in the August 2007 issue, Scientific American recently published an interview with Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Latanya Sweeney regarding the trade-offs between security and privacy. Dr. Sweeney provides a refreshing counter-point to Sun Microsystems CEO, Scott McNealy's 'famous quip', 'Privacy is dead. Get over it.' She advocates the idea that privacy is not primarily a political expediency, but rather a biological one. Suggesting that technological design doesn't have to take a 'soup OR salad' approach, she calls for changes in the way present and future computer scientists are trained. Dr. Sweeney is quoted as saying, 'I think if we are successful in producing a new breed of engineers and computer scientists, society will really benefit. The whole technology-dialectics thing is really aiming at how you should go about teaching engineers and computer scientists to think about user acceptance and social adoption [and also that they] have to think about barriers to technology [from the beginning].'"

Comments

Yarrrr!

[LiquidCoooled]

I told ye I had grog in me veins.
Yo ho ho a pirates life for me!

Avast!

Ohhh, you said Privacy

Privacy is based in natural rights

[Zigurd]

Americans tend to mistakenly think in terms of rights granted by their federal constitution.

This is an especially ironic error since the U.S. Constitution was written in terms that make it clear that rights do not come from a constitution. You have rights, period. The U.S. Constitution does not list your rights. It lists the legitimate powers of government.

So, when someone says, "You have no constitutional right to privacy." they are making a fundamental mistake. They are suggesting that your rights are enumerated, when, both implicit in the structure of the U.S. Constitution and explicitly stated in Amendements IX and X: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." and "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Privacy is a natural right. Without it, many other rights become a nullity.